I have a fascination with complex spreads, but they are usually too large and elaborate for simple decision-making. I decided to create a two-pronged decision tree with only three cards in each chain: situation, choice and outcome, plus an optional "quintessence" card for each as advice. The title refers to the fact that, in 1981, … Continue reading The “Strummer’s Wishbone” Simple Choice Spread
Decision-making Spreads
A Simple Yes-or-No Spread
Answering straightforward yes-or-no questions in a clean, simple way has never been easy with the tarot because the cards are highly nuanced, telling complex stories rather than pronouncing clear-cut verdicts. Different approaches have been tried, including single-card pulls that rely on the general positive or negative nature of the card drawn, or - even more … Continue reading A Simple Yes-or-No Spread
The “Sword and Shield” Decision-Making Spread
This is an earlier and more complex 15-card version of the "active-or-passive" decision-making spread I previously posted as the Balance of Forces spread. It is a study in its own right, in that it uses a qabalistic Tree of Life format with my own take on Adam Kadmon, the "Heavenly Man," standing within the Tree … Continue reading The “Sword and Shield” Decision-Making Spread
The “Second Opinion” Moving Line Spread
This is a "Majors-Only" spread in which only four of the cards are drawn from the 22-card deck; the rest are derived from the card first drawn in each row. It adopts the concept that all of the Major Arcana cards except the Fool as "0" have one or more "numerological counterparts" based on the … Continue reading The “Second Opinion” Moving Line Spread
The “Double Whammy” Yes-or-No Spread
This is an intense little spread that is more complicated than it looks. It uses only the 56 suit cards and also two standard dice, and is designed around the astronomical Earth-Sun-Moon cycle. The waxing lunar cycle builds toward "Yes" and the waning cycle fades toward "No." The idea is to first lay out the … Continue reading The “Double Whammy” Yes-or-No Spread
The “Fool’s Insight” Spread
This spread uses the Fool card from a second deck as a kind of impartial observer of the situation described in the reading. It represents an archetypal Inner Fool “holding up a mirror” ( the cards in the spread) to reflect the querent's wisdom or folly in the matter at hand. The idea for the … Continue reading The “Fool’s Insight” Spread
The “Balance of Forces” Decision-Making Spread
This is a slightly fanciful spread designed around the model of a Medieval "high fantasy" court, with King, Queen, Mage, Priest, Knights (War Chief and Queen's Guard) and Realm, along with the the advisory inputs of Justice, Mercy and other forms of counsel based on elemental "jurisdiction." But it has a serious objective: whether to … Continue reading The “Balance of Forces” Decision-Making Spread
The “Decision Stream” Spread
This is a simple decision-making spread that evaluates the pros and cons of up to four options, although it can easily be expanded to cover more than four by adding input streams. Decision Stream Spread
The “5 W’s + 1” Decision Spread
Those of us who went through the US school system in the middle of the 20th Century were taught the "5 W's" as a device for writing effective narrative, both fact and fiction. According to Wikipedia, the Five W's are questions whose answers are considered basic in information gathering or problem solving. They are often … Continue reading The “5 W’s + 1” Decision Spread
A “Yes-or-No” Spread for the Perennial Skeptic
I created a Yes-or-No spread that started out being fairly straightforward. It had only five cards plus a "wild card, it used my traveling Significator idea as well as the concept of higher cards "trumping" lower ones, and brought in the use of Elemental Dignities and reversals. Nothing could be simpler, right? Then I got … Continue reading A “Yes-or-No” Spread for the Perennial Skeptic
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 